Ag Week Special Blog--Monday, The Farmer

As many of you already know, I refer to my Farmer as DH (his initials, although he is a 'dear husband' as well) or The Farmer. It kinda started when he didn't want me talking about him on Facebook.........he's 'tough' like that! LOL Anyway, in celebration of Ag week, I am going to blog about what I know about Agriculture, and since I learned most of it from him, he's up first!




Adding hay to the feed grinder, he laughs and says his hobby is 'grinding feed'


We've been married almost 23 years. We live on the farm that his parents bought when he was about 5. We live in the house that he grew up in. We are raising our 4 kids on the farm. We farm in partnership with his youngest sister and her husband. Our farm is located mostly in SW Monroe County MO, with a little bit in western Audrain County. Our kids belong to an Audrain County 4H club, and go to school 'two counties' away, at Centralia, in Boone county. (granted two counties away is about 10 miles)



The Farmer and me at Senior Football night, last fall.


We have a mostly registered Angus cattle herd. We also take care of a herd of Gelbvieh cattle owned by our neighbor. We feed them silage all winter, then graze and feed  a little hay through the summer. We usually sell the calves at around 600-700 pounds. We feed out a few to sell as butcher beef. Our kids mostly pick their show cattle from our herd. With our partners being ABS dealers, we serve as the 'testing grounds' for new bull semen, it's helpful for them to see what kind of calves certain bulls produce.

MSF 2008, hard to believe that picture is almost 5 yrs old, but looking at our boys today, they've changed a lot since then.

The Farmer sells seed corn and soybeans through a company called Big Cob out of Nebraska. It helps pay our seed bill, plus adds a little income. We generally plant a test plot each year to show the neighbors the different varieties we have available. Planting and harvesting that are both labor inducive jobs.

We raise corn and soybeans. We usually plant some wheat. We also have several acres of alfalfa. We do some custom work for neighbors. Mainly knifing on anhydrous or harvesting. Although we have been doing several custom baling jobs the last several years as well.

Chopping Silage, this is our cattle's winter feed.

We aren't 100% 'Green' or 'Red' there are some of each in the shed. My Farmer says it can be purple as long as it runs and gets the job done. We are lucky to have good John Deere and Case IH dealers locally when the need for parts arises.

The Farmer went to NWMSU in Maryville and got his BS in Agricultural Mechanics. Most of the time if something breaks down, he can fix it. The same goes for anything, not just tractors..... It amazes me how he can look at a problem and start thinking how it can be corrected. Definitely a talent, I am glad he has.

I feel very blessed to have The Farmer in my life. He takes very good care of us, he feeds his share of the world.

From Tulip~
KH
:)